“You have a substitute for a damaged organ and keep it without immuno-suppression.

"We have started in a rat, and we have now published a paper where we have not been able to create a whole uterus but uterus-patches, bio-engineered. These may be the future, but we'll of course need a lot of research.

"Not in five years, but perhaps in 10-15 years.”

Womb transplants help women who are suffering from absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI) which occurs when a faulty or absent uterus prevents an embryo from implanting. The condition affects around 12,000 women in Britain.

Prof Brannstrom, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said that there was currently a 71 per cent ‘take-home-baby rate’ for his womb transplant procedure.

In all, nine women have received transplants, but two were removed; one after infection developed and the other because of a thrombosis. One woman has gone on to have a second child from the same transplanted womb.

Professor Mats Brannstrom carried out the first womb transplant in April 2014 Credit:
University of Gothenburg

"It's the first trial, so everything gets better,” he said. “So at the moment the pregnancy rate or efficiency of the procedure is good."

Prof Brannstrom also said he had received ethical permission to use robotics to surgically harvest a uterus, in order to shorten the current 10-12 hour procedure by almost half.

"There are things to optimise like non-surgical preparation,” he said.

"The robotic-assisted procedure - I think we can shorten the surgical procedure from 10-12 hours, to six to eight hours."

Professor Alan Cameron, RCOG's vice president of clinical quality, said: "The RCOG congratulates the scientific advances made by Prof Mats Brannstrom and his team.

"Uterine transplantation is still a very new and experimental procedure which is currently only conducted through clinical trials.

"Prof Brannstrom has achieved exceptional results and we welcome further clinical trials in the hope that this becomes an established clinical treatment with high patient safety and efficiency."

The first baby born through a womb transplant, who has not been identified

Richard Smith, who leads the UK Uterine Transplant Research Programme, said: "Mats Brannstrom and his team have achieved a very important proof of concept and we heartily congratulate them once again.

"Most of all, we have great admiration for all organ donors and those ladies who volunteered to undergo this ground breaking surgery.

"Absolute uterine infertility is a huge and growing problem affecting tens of thousands of women in this country - and the success of the Swedish team shows that at least some of these women will be able to bear their own child where before there was no hope."